PHIL 135:Existentialism (PHIL 235)

Focus is on the existentialist preoccupation with human freedom. What constitutes authentic individuality? What is one's relation to the divine? How can one live a meaningful life? What is the significance of death? A rethinking of the traditional problem of freedom and determinism in readings from Rousseau, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and the extension of these ideas by Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, including their social and political consequences in light of 20th-century fascism and feminism.

Last offered: Spring 2014
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER

PHIL 136:History of Analytic Philosophy (PHIL 236)

(Formerly 147/247; graduate students register for 236.) Theories of knowledge in Frege, Carnap, and Quine. Emphasis is on conceptions of analyticity and treatment of logic and mathematics. Prerequisite: 50 and one course numbered 150-165 or 181-90.

| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 137:Wittgenstein (PHIL 237)

(Graduate students register for 237.) An exploration of Wittgenstein's changing views about meaning, mind, knowledge, and the nature of philosophical perplexity and philosophical insight, focusing on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations.

PHIL 138:Recent European Philosophy: Between Nature and History (PHIL 238)

A critical introduction to the novel understandings of time, language, and cultural power developed by 20th-century continental thinkers, with close attention to work by Heidegger, Saussure, Benjamin, and Foucault.

Last offered: Autumn 2009
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 143:Quine (PHIL 243)

(Formerly 183/283; graduate students register for 243.) The philosophy of Quine: meaning and communication; analyticity, modality, reference, and ontology; theory and evidence; naturalism; mind and the mental.

Last offered: Autumn 2008
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 160A:Newtonian Revolution (PHIL 260A)

(Graduate students register for 260A.) 17th-century efforts in science including by Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Huygens, that formed the background for and posed the problems addressed in Newton¿s
Principia.

| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 160B:Newtonian Revolution (PHIL 260B)

(Graduate students register for 260B.) Newton¿s
Principia in its historical context, emphasizing how it produced a revolution in the conduct of empirical research and in standards of evidence in science.

(Graduate students register for 263.)nThe influences of Hertz, Boltzmann, Mach and Planck on the development of Einstein's philosophical views regarding the scope and limits of physical theory. The distinction between principle theories and constructive theories from Poincaré and Lorentz, to Einstein. The impact of special and general relativity on logical empiricism. How Einstein's views changed in response to two core challenges, the advent of quantum mechanics and his three-decades long failure to extend general relativity to a "theory of the total field". We conclude by considering the lasting impact of Einstein's philosophical views, and whether they can be assimilated to contemporary currents in philosophy of science.nnPREREQUISITES: No detailed knowledge of physics or mathematics is presumed. Some background in philosophy, natural science or mathematics will be helpful. Students will benefit from possession of a modicum of mathematical maturity (roughly equivalent to a familiarity with elementary single-variable calculus or the metatheory of first-order logic).

Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 164:Central Topics in the Philosophy of Science: Theory and Evidence (PHIL 264)

(Graduate students register for 264.) Is reductionism opposed to emergence? Are they compatible? If so, how or in what sense? We consider methodological, epistemological, logical and metaphysical dimensions of contemporary discussions of reductionism and emergence in physics, in the ¿sciences of complexity¿, and in philosophy of mind.